2012 Toxic Feature Stories

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View from Qiantangjiang Dam. Many villagers use this part of the river for fishing and have little choice but to bear the pollution. The pollution is caused by wastewater from the nearby textile industry in Hangzhou, China. Dongying Wei and...

Dongying Wei witnesses pollution from a chemical plant. Dongying Wei and her husband Guantong Shao have been investigating environmental pollution for over a decade. They have reported their findings to the government officials and more than one...

We live on a wet planet, and without that water we would not be able to survive. But in places like China where I live, industries such as textile facilities are pumping a nasty cocktail of toxic chemicals into our water – you only...

In 2010 Chinese journalist Deng Fei published a Google Map that highlighted some of the country's many 'cancer villages' - a name bestowed to hot-spots of unusually high numbers of cancer victims. Such villages are often blighted...

Su Yunxia mourns for her recently departed husband and father of their baby boy. The father Zhang Qiaoliang, 25 years old, died of throat cancer just before the birth of his child. The cluster of paper and chemical factories about 15km upstream...

Cao Yungen from Sanjiang village is 62 years old and was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009. The nearby East China Sea is reported as being polluted with persistent toxic chemicals, the major source of which is industrial discharge. The situation...

Last week we heard, for the first time, the Chinese government acknowledge the existence of ‘cancer villages’ .
When our campaigner Mariah Zhao went to visit one such village in China's Jiangsu province, back in 2009, here is...